Secrets of Old
by Godfather
Summary: In his latest moneymaking scheme, Artemis cheats an aspiring child genius of a disk containing ancient fairy manuscripts that even predate the Book. But even he cannot guess how powerful these secrets are, or how far some will go to stop him.
1. Chapter 1

At fifteen years old, the subject, Artemis Fowl, was without a doubt the world's best criminal mastermind. In the three years since his scandalous encounter with the fairies, namely Holly Short and the LEPrecon, he had amassed more than enough money to cover whatever losses his family fortune had suffered. Through various criminal enterprises, the brilliant mind that was Artemis Fowl had eluded the smartest detectives and pulled off impossible heist after another. If you asked him, he would also remind you that he has a book published, a bestseller, written under the pseudonym Dr. F. Roy Dean Schlippe. An ingenious nonfiction musing on the enigma of the human mind, and one that had earned 'Dr. Schlippe quite a bit of publicity and money'

Now, he was about to pull off a small time job. A simple matter of deception that would add another couple grand to the Fowl fortune.

Even being  arguably the most intelligent person in the world, he could have  no way of knowing the trouble that this petty crime would cause down the road . . .

In the back of his Bentley, fifteen-year-old Artemis was busy checking the briefcase, a brown, leather one that appeared hold twenty-thousand dollars in cash. 'Appeared' being the operative word in this particular situation.

The Bentley pulled to a gentle stop in an alley. A large, six foot plus Eurasian man, Artemis's bodyguard whom he referred to as Butler, stepped out, taking the brown leather briefcase with him. Although Artemis had masterminded and even devised the entire scheme, Butler would be the one to actually handle the transaction. 

The other car parked not two meters from Fowl's Bentley no doubt contained the other party. Artemis watched with interest as the door of the Rolls Royce opened. It was quite dark outside with nothing but a crescent moon to provide any sort of light, but night vision glasses he wore gave him crystal clear vision as a man and a woman stepped out of the car. Both wore floor length black dusters and one held a box.

Perfect.

Artemis adjusted a small knob on the glasses, enhancing the image. They were video linked to a small camera that Butler had attached to his own glasses. In essence, Artemis could see whatever Butler saw. The technology was really light years ahead of the most sophisticated human technology, a little gift that he'd 'borrowed from the fairies in his dealings with them. No doubt his collection of fairy technology had been invaluable to him in past dealings.

"Do you have the cash?"

Artemis heard the question through the receiver built into his laptop. Butler had the microphone, which currently resting in his suit pocket. It was a handy system intended so that Artemis could more clearly observe what was going on outside.

Butler needed no prompting. "Yes, right here." He nodded towards his briefcase.

"Slide it over here."

Butler hesitated, but Artemis hissed through the comm. System, "do it."

Butler placed the briefcase on the ground and kicked it expertly across the ground. One of them, the woman, stepped forward, bent down, and picked it up off the ground. In two seconds, she had it open. Butler knew she would find that the bills were all there.

Artemis watched from the car as the woman pulled a scanner out of her pocket, just like he'd anticipated. She ran it over the bills quickly and efficiently, nodding to her partner when it was all done.

The man stepped forward, opting to hand Butler the box. Butler opened it and looked inside. There lay a solitary disk.

"It looks legitimate," he whispered to Artemis through the comm link.

"Yes, it does, but we would be foolish not to check."

"Of course." Butler extricated something resembling a PDA from his pocket. He inserted the disk and, pressed a small red button, sending the information directly to Artemis's laptop. (another little bit of fairy technology.)

Artemis quickly scanned through it with eyes that could absorb and process information faster than most anyone alive. "It's good."

Butler smiled. He always liked it when a deal went well, at least when it went well for Artemis. "Pleasure doing business with you," he said genially. 

"Likewise, replied the man and the woman simultaneously. "We assume you have everything you want."

"Yes."

Wordlessly, the two slid back into the Rolls Royce. In a matter of seconds, the car was driving away.

Artemis waited until he returned to Fowl Manor to more thoroughly examine his prize. It was late at night and his parents were both in bed, so the only sound being made was by Butler's sister Juliet talking on the phone, probably with a member of the opposite sex.

Fowl went to his study and slid the disk inside of  his PC. A few lightning fast keystrokes later, strange symbols suddenly appeared on the screen in an odd and seemingly senseless configuration. Artemis would have been perplexed if he didn't already know how to decipher the code, or rather, the language. Gnommish.

He had designed a program years ago that could decipher the puzzling language, one that he used now. It took about a minute given the many translative differences the computer had to overcome, but soon enough the entire text contained on the disk was reduced to English. Reduced because some of the characters which simply could not convert had been lost.

"My my," he muttered to himself, or rather, to the person that had given it to him, "if only you knew what it was you had." He was sure that if they had , they would never have given it up for such a small price. How small a price, they were abut to find out.

Giselle Thebedeaux was waiting in her room when her two assistants, the twins Cameron and Carrie, entered. They were both in their late twenties, and had faces and bodies that seemed to conform to whatever society considered attractive at the time. That was the least of their blessings though, as they also possessed extensive training in martial arts and the use of firearms, a useful talent, for they also served as Giselle's bodyguards.

Giselle smiled when she saw the briefcase that Carrie held in her hand. The fourteen year old braniac immediately hopped off of her bed. Standing at around five feet seven inches, Giselle possessed long, dark hair that she preferred to wear up in a ponytail. She had graciously slanted black eyes and an aristocratic nose, the only physical characteristic she had inherited from her father. The rest of her features were decidedly Asian, as her mother was the daughter of a Vietnamese businessman who had married a French multi-millionaire.

Her mental capacities were astounding. There is no other way to put it, for this girl was a true genius. Not only in knowledge, but in cunning and intelligence. At age four, she had  been able to play Symphony No. 6 flawlessly on the piano, and was just as talented in other instruments, such as the harp, the flute, and even the tuba. By the time Giselle was six, she was being rushed into high school level courses. She knew far more than the teachers and Professor's themselves however, so after she had caused the resignation of two highly esteemed teachers at the Foxbury School for Young Ladies, her parents had designed to just take her out of school and let her teach herself.

Giselle took advantage of this of course. She had considered school to be a silly waste of time anyway, and now she was free to invest her time in her own pursuits, like writing novels and playing in orchestras in symphonies all across Europe and even in America.

Tonight though, tonight was the first time that she had actually done something like this. It had all started the previous month when she had been touring Ireland and happened to run across a small book, about the dimensions of matchbox. On the cover was several strange symbols and inside, the book was filled with a code that even her best software could not figure out.

Somehow, she had no idea exactly how, but somehow, someone had found out about this and contacted her, offering to give her a large sum of money for just a copy of the book.

It was suspicious. There were several unanswered questions, such as how this mysterious person who referred to his/her self as AF had even known about it, not to mention that he or she was willing to pay a large sum of money for what appeared to be a bunch of nothing. Money was money however, and if AF wanted it so bad, then AF could have it. Giselle sure hadn't been able to do anything with it.

"So you have the money?" Giselle asked, excitement creeping into her voice. 

"Yep," said Carrie. It was a word she had picked up in America, and now seemed to use all the time. Carrie handed Giselle the briefcase.

With a grin, Giselle took it and sat down. She flipped it open with blinding speed and looked down at her reward. There it was. Tons of stacks of bills just lying there.

"They're perfectly legit," said Carrie. Another word she'd gotten from the West.

Giselle's mind had just started to toy with the different ways she could spend the money when she noticed a strange smell that seemed to be emanating from the briefcase. 

"What the-" was all she managed to get out before the money literally melted right in front of her. It was giving off a strange fume, and then its entire consistency changed from solid to semi-liquid, a paste like substance that smelled absolutely horrific and melded together into one huge blob of green goo.

Giselle was dumbfounded. Her mouth dropped open and she couldn't speak for a moment. Even when she tried, it was a hoarse croak. It wasn't hard for her advanced mind to figure out what had happened. She'd been swindled!

Her shock subsided soon enough and it was replaced by rage, although you wouldn't be able to tell by looking at her. When Giselle became angry , she rarely showed it. She'd been tricked, duped, bamboozled. A genius she was, and yet she'd been played like a fool. Her pride had taken a very significant blow.

But she would get her revenge.

"Do you want me to throw this out?" Cameron asked, referring to the gunk that now filled the briefcase.

Giselle shook her head, still seething with anger. "No," she said. "Take it to the lab, I want to analyze it myself. And give me the footage from the transaction." She'd recorded the entire thing as a backup, and it looked like that would come in handy after all. She promised herself that she would make Mr. AF rue the day he'd decided to cheat Giselle Thebedeaux. And if there was any one quality that Giselle possessed, it was that she always kept her promises.

"Right about now," Artemis told Butler, "they will probably have discovered my little surprise."

Butler didn't say anything. He had no doubt that Artemis was 100% correct. He had a knack for these things.

"I imagine that Giss. T., probably a female, will be experiencing a bit of rage.

Giss. T. was the codename that the other party had used. Of course, unknown to Artemis it stood for Giselle Thebedeaux

"She will attempt retaliation," Artemis continued, "or at least think about it. After all, she was just cheated out of twenty thousand dollars. Not to worry though, this Giss T. is harmless, she can't hurt us."

It was one of the few times that Artemis Fowl had ever been wrong in his life.


	2. Chapter 2

"D'Arvit," Captain Holly Short muttered as she surveyed the scene aboveground. Fyri was gone from site, having disappeared somewhere in the looming forest that greeted her aboveground.

She took her Neutrino 2000 out of its holster and held in a two-handed grip, reminding herself to give a good verbal lashing to the idiotic surveillance officer who'd let this particular goblin through the chute in the first place. Fyri was a wily one all right, it was a surprise he hadn't escaped aboveground sooner.

The fact that it was the middle of the day didn't help things. She hadn't seen any Mud People yet, but it was only a matter of time and if one of them should happen to see either her or Fyri, the goblin . . .the implications of that were disastrous.

Holly activated the motion sensor filter that was built into her helmet and scanned the surrounding area. A couple of times, the computer would flag a squirrel or a bird that happened to zoom by, but it was long before an orange corona in the stooped, lumpy shape of a goblin lit up her visor. 

"Stop, Fyri," she shouted, not really thinking it would do much good. It didn't. Fyri bounded away, quickie widening the distance between him and Holly.

Holly was thankful for the many rigorous exercising routines she put herself through each day as she sped after the slippery goblin. It was night, which worked to her disadvantage because unlike fairies, goblins could see in the dark, and this one in particular was making the most of that, darting in and out of the inky shadows and winding his way through the trees. Holly wished she had her other helmet, the one with night vision goggles built in. It would have made the chase so much easier.

All of the sudden, the fleeing footsteps ahead of her came to an abrupt end.

"What the-" she muttered, coming to a stop. She listened closely, her delicately pointed ears, far superior to those of a human strained to pick up even the faintest sounds, but there were no footsteps at all, and the background noise of other wildlife, like crickets and other nocturnal insects, blew away any chance she had of pinpointing his location by his breathing.

"Trouble?"

It was the first time in the entire mission that Commander Julius Root had thought to contact her. "You could say that," she muttered. "I'm operating blind, and  goblin boy seems to have disappeared, or at least stopped moving."

"You're operating blind?"

"It's night, and I don't have my night vision specs."

In one of his rare calm moments, Root refrained from an all out explosion and simply said, "we'll discuss your lack of oversight later. As it is, I wonder if you've considered the notion that Fyri might have climbed up into the trees.

As if on cue, Holly heard a slight rustling in the branch above her. She fired.

She missed, but the energy beam struck a branch, lighting it on fire. The flames soon spread to nearby branches, and soon a yelp of pain pierced the darkness as Fyri's hiding spot was turned into an oven. He tried to leap to another tree, but an expertly thrown buzz baton hit him square in the rump, so he miscalculated the jump and slammed into the tree trunk instead of landing gracefully on one of the branches. 

Holly smiled victoriously as she approached the rogue goblin. She could already see the commendations Root would give her, how she would have another flawless arrest on her record, which was a good idea to have given how much her reputation had fallen since the Artemis Fowl debacle.

"Stand up slowly," Holly commanded, pointing her blaster straight at Fyri. "Hands behind your head. Move!"

Fyri stared at her and then a gleam appeared in his eyes. He threw back his head and let out the most bloodcurdling yell Holly had ever heard. It was so loud that it made her feel like her brain was being split in two.

It didn't take long to realize why the goblin had done this, as all of the sudden, voices, _Mud People_ voices, pierced the night, all of them voicing in some way or another that they were going to see what was going, which was only natural given the inhuman scream that Fyri had just produced.

Most goblins are idiots, which isn't even an insult, just a fact. Their brain capacity plus a dollar might get you a gumball at one of the Mud People's gumball machines. Might. No way an ordinary goblin could have thought up a plan like that, or even managed to outsmart LEP surveillance and security systems. The thing was, Fyri was no ordinary goblin. He'd been born with an abnormality in his brain, but instead of making him even dumber, it had increased his intelligence to even higher than the average fairy. He was no genius, but he was certainly smart, which made him a dangerous opponent.

The Mud people were closing in, flashlights lit. If Holly didn't do something, they'd spot her.

A beam of light hit her foot, and she responded instantly. She shielded, making it so that the naked eye could not see her. Fyri also was quick to react. Before anyone could see him, he darted into the shadows.

"Captain Short, report. Over the intercom, it sounds like Mud People are nearby."

"Um, that's because they are. Fyri attracted their attention. I had to shield. Fyri got away."

"D'Arvit!" Root bellowed, "there's no blasted way of knowing what he'll do. The trouble that blasted goblin could cause . . ." He trailed off, letting the sentence and its implications hang in the air.

"Sir, may I have permission to return to LEPrecon HQ. I don't think that I'll be able to get him now without attracting too much attention."

"Permission granted Short. Report back ASAP. Foaly wants the chance to brief you on some new equipment he's designed for the LEP. All the officer's were already briefed, so we might as well get you up to date."

"Understood."

When Holly made it back underground, she was almost immediately approached by the genius centaur known as Foaly. He seemed to be trotting in place, a surefire sign that he was excited about something.

"Hey Foaly. I heard-"

"That I had something to show you? Yes I do, come with me please." He grabbed Holly's hand rather abruptly and practically dragged her to the conference room. On the table was piled a couple of devices, no doubt what Foaly was trying to show her.

"Well, go on, what is it?"

If possible, Foaly's smile grew even wider as he reached over and picked up  a funny looking handgun of sokme sort. It was small, and the barrel was unusually thin, it also had a large black box mounted on the top, possibly a battery.

"A gun."

"Its only the latest in non-lethal weaponry. I call it the TED, Thermal Energy Discharger. You see, when you shoot someone, a tiny beam of superheated solar plasma shoots out, but instead of burning right through the target, it redistributes itself upon contact. The result is that for about eight tenths of a second, the target is engulfed in superheated energy. The effect is quite interesting. It immediately vaporizes all moisture on the epidermis, and even some underneath, which of course effects the nerves. All moisture on the eyes is also evaporated, leaving the target blind. So you have a blind target whose entire body feels like its being stuffed into an oven."

"Seems a little cruel."

Foaly shrugged, "What can I say, it incapacitates them. The blindness and pain are of course temporary, and the TED should be a pretty good deterrent against trying to escape from the LEP."

"Hmm, is that it?"

"Not quite." Foaly set down the TED and trotted back a little bit so that he could pick up the second item he'd set there . It looked like an ordinary digital wristwatch "This is the APITA."

"Another acronym?"

"Hey, it's the 21st century, that's how its done. Anyway APITA stands for Automatic Photon Inducing Teleportation Device. It converts all of the particles that compose your body to photons, allowing for the wearer to literally travel at the speed of light. Its instant transmission."

"Any cons to this amazing device?"

"Well, you remain in photon particle mode for two seconds before the device automatically reverts you back and stops you, because otherwise, you wouldn't be able to revert back at all. Also, you cannot teleport through opaque or reflective objects, like walls or mirrors. It runs on magic so naturally, your magic will be depleted the more you teleport, but its still quite a useful device. You can navigate mentally too."

"Sounds good." Holly took the APITA from Foaly and strapped it on, putting the TED in a spare holster on her belt after that. "We'll see if they're useful on my next mission."

"They will be, trust me, they will be."

Giselle sat up, withdrawing her head from the high-tech microscope with which she'd been analyzing the residue of the melting money.  She sighed. 

"Any progress yet?" asked Cameron.

"no. It's a completely foreign substance, and I can't think of anything that could be modified into such a convincing counterfeit of hard cash, and then set to degenerate."

Cameron frowned. There were very few things that could puzzle Giselle, and if this was one of them, he had to wonder about exactly what kind of person they were dealing with. "Do you want me to get the tape?" he asked, referring to the recorded footage of the exchange.

"Yeah, maybe I can glean some information from that."

A few minues later, Giselle was sitting in her room looking at the tape. The technology was state of the art, and the quality of picture and sound was unbelievable. 

"OK," she muttered, "so the Bentley pulls up, and then the big guy gets out with the suitcase." She watched as Cameron and Carrie asked for the briefcase, watched as they gave the man the disk. She watched as-

"Wait, Hold it!," she almost shouted. Startled, Cameron immediately paused the tape. 

"What is it, Giselle?"

"Look. Right there in the car. You can only see it for a second, but there's another person in there."

"So?"

Giselle furrowed her brow in concentration. "I'll bet," she said, "that the man you were dealing with is just the go between man, and the guy in the car is who we really want, AF." It was part educated guess, and mostly pure instinct, but Giselle had learned over the years to always trust her instincts, as they rarely let her down.

She watched the rest of the footage, making a mental note here or there, and then shut the television off, turning her chair so that it faced her desk where her laptop lay. She hooked it up to her television and, using some more state of the art technology, downloaded the frame in which the large, Eurasian man's features were clearly shown, as well as the best profile and angle shots. Once those screenshots were on her computer, she set to work. It was a simple matter to hack into the files of all of the major agencies in Europe, and even many of the American ones like the CIA and the FBI, setting a program that would match the face she now had on her computer with any pictures that were anywhere in the databanks of any agencies. Five minutes later, she got a match.

As she scrolled down the webpage, a wicked grin appeared on her face. 


	3. Chapter 3

Artemis Fowl stayed up very late the next night, which was not in and of itself unusual unless coupled with the fact that his reasons for doing so stemmed entirely from his inability to decipher the meaning of the characters that were on the disk. A rare occurrence if there ever was one. The boy genius was simply baffled, and it was only recently that he'd been able to come to terms with this new revelation. He wondered if perhaps he'd been duped. Probably not, as far as he knew, he was the only human alive with the ability to understand gnomish, and to fabricate the language would require extensive knowledge on the language and the Fairy world.  
  
"Is everything alright?" Butler asked.  
  
"It will be soon," Artemis promised. "Butler, would you please inform me when twenty minutes have elapsed."  
  
"Yes, but why?"  
  
"By then, I should have decoded this language. It's a mental exercise, nothing more."  
  
"Very well then."  
  
"Thank you." Artemis turned back to the disk. The titles were easily decoded, as they were written in gnommish. Artemis figured that this meant the title had been added later, because the language that lay in the actual writings was quite different. It made sense, why should the fairy language have remained consistent over thousands of years? Human language certainly did not.  
  
Artemis made a mental list of similarities between this and gnommish in his mind. Like the language that the fairies currently used, this was pictoral. It shared some other features as well. The basic syntax and structure seemed to be the same-but then what was the difference? Probably just the actual meaning of the words and the method of arrangement. One could find a similar occurrence when trying to translate Spanish into English-or more accurately-Latin into English.  
  
He was much more optimistic now. It was a solvable conundrum after all. "Butler, how much time is left?"  
  
"Seventeen minutes, sir."  
  
Artemis cracked his knuckles, and then put his hand on the mouse, when all of the sudden, an alarm message popped up on his screen, invading the entire monitor with a most interesting report.  
  
Artemis had many safeguards to protect his privacy, and one of them was a bit of software that hybridized human and fairy technology. It was set to immediately alert Artemis when anyone tried to access his or Butler's files, leaving Artemis to decide what to do about it.  
  
He mentally calculated the time he had left if he were to pass his own test. He would have to make this quick. First, he accessed the basic information for this unknown person or persons who had apparently decided to nose into his affairs. The email address was gthebedeaux@aol.com Now to find out who this email address belonged to. This turned out to be a bit more difficult, but Artemis was a little bit surprised at the name.  
  
Butler, who had been watching Artemis frowned. "The most peculiar name I've ever seen, he murmured.  
  
"Giselle Thebedeaux," Artemis said, flawlessly pronouncing the name. "I recognize the name Thebedeaux from somewhere." Artemis thought for a moment. "I believe that your sister possessed a video game system that is produced by Link Inc."  
  
Butler stifled a grin at the unimaginative company name. "But what does that have to do with this Thebedeaux person?"  
  
Deciding not to point out the flaws in Butlers pronunciation, Artemis answered, "The company's CEO is a man by the name of Thebedeaux."  
  
"Then it would seem that he is the one who is trying to access your files."  
  
Artemis shook his head. gthebedeaux@aol.com is not this man's email address. Artemis turned around. "You are still accounting for the time, yes?  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Good."  
  
Butler just watched the clock as the boy genius he had sworn to protect typed away furiously on his computer. He opened window after window, did search after search, and sometimes stopped to let the computer that was his mind figure out a problem.  
  
"Time," Butler called. When the second hand finally reached its destination for the last time.  
  
Fowl eyed the screen. He was no longer typing. "That was invigorating," he declared, "I shall have to do this more often."  
  
"Did you get the information you were looking for?" inquired Butler.  
  
"Yes." Artemis pushed a few keys on the keyboard. And a Hodgepodge of letters filled the screen. They were in English of course, and if one looked closely, they could even be read. Artemis had managed to convert the entire grammatical structure as well as translate as well as convert this more graphic based language into the closest thing the symbols had to an English counterpart.  
  
That was only half of what Butler had been referring to when he said information, so Artemis closed the text window and brought up a different file. Giselle Thebedeaux, daughter of Jaques Thebedeaux and Kim Le Thao, is our culprit. Surprising actually, as I suspect she might be even younger than I am. The important thing though, is that if I trace all of my dealings with GT in the past weeks, I find that GT and Giselle Thebedeaux are one and the same. Given that, it is not hard to reconstruct what has happened. I imagine that she has considerable resources at her disposal, so after discovering my deception, she tried to find me. I anticipated as much."  
  
"What are you going to do about it?"  
  
"Nothing. If Ms. Thebedeaux attempts to move against me, I will take appropriate actions though. In the meantime, I am going to eat dinner. If any more alerts should arise, tell me."  
  
"Yes sir."  
  
***  
  
"OK Foaly, I think you have a bit of a problem," Holly said. It was a statement that could have won the Understatement of the Year Award.  
  
Foaly grimaced. It was not a pleasant sight that lay before him. In LEP Headquarters, almost every single agent returning from a mission was puking their guts out-it was worse than the Fowl Incident where LEP had unwittingly sent a force into the Fowl Manor, mistakenly thinking that the criminal mastermind was dead.  
  
"What do you think it is?" This question came from Trouble Kelp, the only officer other than Holly not to have come down with vomiting.  
  
Foaly gave the centaur equivalent of a sigh. "It must be the APITA," he said. "It is the only common denominator here."  
  
"I knew it," Holly muttered. "Anything with a name that stupid is bound to malfunction."  
  
"On the contrary," said Foaly, "The APITAs worked perfectly. It was the operatives instead who 'malfunctioned'. I'll have to take a closer look at all the units, because frankly, it could be any number of things that is causing this violent reaction to the subatomic molecular alteration process that allows for the instant transmission."  
  
Holly groaned and then pushed open the door so she could leave. The whole place was starting to smell like fairy vomit, which makes its human counterpart smell like fresh spring flowers by comparison.  
  
At least the TED's weren't displaying any unpleasant side effects. Holly had practiced using the weapon many times in the firing range, imagining that each target was that wily little goblin Fyri. It had worked to perfection, and Holly hoped the new TED would work just as well against the real thing. She was itching for a rematch. It had been a smart move on Fyri's part to take advantage of the mud People's presence, but when Holly caught up with him, there would be no Mud People around. Just him, her, and a thermal energy shockwave up his-  
  
She didn't have time to complete the thought, as one of the technicians that had been assigned to find the rogue goblin rushed up to her, almost bowling her over. He was a sprite, who apparently seemed to have fallen prey to the newest fad among the fairies. Body art, one of the aspects of human culture that had wormed its way into the Lower Elements. This particular sprite had a tattoo on his forehead that read LEP and several earrings in his ears. Holly couldn't believe that there wasn't some protocol or another that forbade such a disgusting way of defacing one's body.  
  
"Did you find anything?" she asked.  
  
"Yeth Come wiff me."  
  
Holly frowned. His voice sounded a little bit strange. Then she noticed the studded ornament on the guy's tongue.  
  
She shuddered.  
  
He led her to a room where similarly dressed technicians were clustered all over a readout screen. "What is it?" she asked.  
  
Fyri's locator. It was slightly damaged, but we still managed to triangulate Fyri's location."  
  
"Is he moving?"  
  
"Yes. Quite rapidly I might add."  
  
Holly was already doing mental calculations in her head. "Where exactly is he?"  
  
"England. The most specific I can give right now."  
  
Vague, but the fact that Fyri was a two and a half foot monster who conjured fireballs and licked his eyeballs would make the search easier. There would be dozens of sightings no doubt, and sooner or later, Holly would catch up with him.  
  
***  
  
It was not the first time that LEP intelligence had been wrong, and it would not be the last. The blunder that they had made though was inexcusable. One would think that after having had the same trick pulled on them twice by both Artemis Fowl and Mulch Diggums, they wouldn't be so easily duped.  
  
Fyri was not in London. He was nowhere near London. He was in fact not far from the site at which Holly had last seen him. He had no way of knowing whether or not LEP really believed the dead end he'd created, but it was his experience that the LEP were especially slow learners.  
  
The locator that they were no doubt using to track him was no longer located on his person. He had slipped it into the briefcase of some wealthy tycoon. Where that would lead those bumbling LEP fools was anyone's guess. One thing was for sure though, it wouldn't be back to him, and that was all Fyri cared about.  
  
He would be free. Free to do what he wanted. Free to go where he wanted. And most importantly, free to use the valuable knowledge he possessed to bring the Lower Elements down once and for all.  
  
He would give a whole new meaning to the words 'sweet revenge.'  
  
A/N: OK, um, I have had at least three reviews on my fic directed to the issue of Giselle being a Mary Sue. Truth be told, I don't really know what a Mary Sue is exactly, but I have the impression that it is negative.  
  
Giselle does possess an unusual array of talents. Intelligence, beauty, and fortune to name a few, and while these are uncommon in one person, its not impossible.  
  
On a final note, I do not intend for Giselle to be perfect. She will think she is perfect, she will act like she is perfect, but she will not be perfect. And her pride will ultimately be her downfall. She will not outsmart Artemis, because while she may be a genius, Artemis is a mastermind. The ultimate conflict will be between Fowl and the fairies.  
  
Hopefully, the presence of Giselle will not be a big turnoff. 


End file.
